Another week of drawing, painting, muttering under my breath, and—every so often—smiling in quiet satisfaction. Art has become my lifeline, keeping my mind active and my spirit tethered to the vibrant world beyond my condo door.
I’ve grown quite fond of making bookmarks—and I make more than a few! This week, I ventured into the world of stencils, using them to add new texture and detail to my bookmark drawings and paintings. These two are examples of how a simple stencil can elevate a design. Stencils are easy to find—Amazon alone has a huge selection at very reasonable prices.
My grandfather and father both spent many years working for the CPR, so this drawing of the old train station in Field, BC, feels especially meaningful to me. I chose not to include a background—landscapes are still a work in progress for me—but I wanted to capture the station itself as a small homage to my forebearers. I know that I will draw it again, probably many times.
I’ve re-drawn the little church we pass on our trips to the family cabin. I’m drawn to its rustic charm, but once again, my landscape backgrounds don’t quite live up to the vision in my head. Recently, I found two used books on sketching basic landscapes, so this week I’ll be focusing on improving that skill. I’m fond of my somewhat childlike building drawings, but I’d like to place them in settings that do them justice.
Painting flowers with the wet watercolour technique is nowhere near as easy as those cheerful YouTube tutorials make it look. Choosing colours that blend beautifully—and convincing them to resemble actual flowers instead of pastel blobs—takes more finesse than I expected. Clearly, a bit more practice is in my future.
So what happens when the flower painting goes way off track? I choose to complete the train wreck and create a wonderful background sheet for my next collage project. By all means, let me know what you do with your train wrecks!
This week may not have brought great leaps in technique, but it has deepened my understanding of why I create. My simple, childlike drawings of buildings are more than lines on paper—they are doorways back to the places and moments that shaped me. Each sketch fills me with quiet joy, and each painting whispers a story I didn’t know I was holding. Art, I’m learning, is not just about improving—it’s about remembering, feeling, and sharing those pieces of myself with the world.
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